How the USDA screwed up the American diet

Does it seem like the official low-fat dietary guidelines have been wrong about pretty much everything? So why do we keep trusting government agencies – ferociously lobbied by the food industry – to tell us what to eat?

IF YOU’VE TRIED to watch what you eat over the past few decades — and who hasn’t? — chances are you’ve come to loathe the federal government, at least when it comes to food advice. The New Yorker recently ran a satirical piece on this topic that was headlined, “Scientists Decide Thing Previously Thought Healthy, Then Unhealthy, Before Healthy Again, Does, in Fact, Cause Cancer,” which is exactly — yeah.